15. Evaluation of campaign - were goals met, strategy followed, people
thanked
The candidate or Campaign Manager might call a meeting of the core group a few
weeks after the campaign. In order to have a thorough accounting of what happened
during the previous year(s) or months, it is important to evaluate the campaign.
Some areas you may decide to assess:
- Where the goals of the campaign met?
- How did this campaign move our issues forward?
- How did this campaign move the progressive movement forward, locally?
- How did we spend our resources -- time, money and volunteers? Was this strategy effective?
- Did we stick to our campaign plan? If so, was this wise? If not, what were the consequences?
- Are all the thank you letters out to contributors and volunteers?
- Are all our bills paid?
- Are we ready to finalize our campaign disclosure forms?
- Did our decision-making process work?
- Analyze the vote:
- Where did we get our votes? Where did we get less support?
- Does this match where we focused our resources?
- Compare the voter turnout percentage of the election with the percentage
of your targeted voters.
- Did this campaign cultivate any new leadership? Train any new activists?
- What do we do with the momentum we generated?
- What is next for our issues? For the activists involved?
Sometimes during a campaign there were moments of frustration or miscommunication.
Make sure that these issues get processed through so there are only lingering
positive feelings from the campaign. Some work around these types of issues is best
done one-on-one, others, that are more structural, might be best talked about within
the group.